Some stuff happened. By stuff, I mean, Windows Update broke my computer. Best I can gather, KB2982791 – update MS14-045, the August 12th 2014 update, prevented my computer from booting. There was a fix, which involved booting the system either into Safe Mode (which didn’t work for me) or mounting it to another system and deleting some subset of files…but that knowledge didn’t come to me until after I’d gone forward with a format. (It was time anyway.)

It was a good (if sudden and uncomfortable) opportunity to upgrade: bigger boot drive, new video card (one of the four fans on my SLI’d cards was dying and being quite loud about it) and quieter fans throughout the case. I also got a new monitor so I could fully leverage the card I got. XCOM in 2160p looks ludicrously good. Too good.

I’m still (slowly) reinstalling software onto my system, just as I need to. I’m enjoying the extra clean Windows install for the time being.

If you still see me pop up on your feeds now and then, you probably are aware of at least two things about Thade.

1. Thade just got married; there is now a Ms. Thade.

2. Thade loves XCOM.

XCOM:EU was nearly the perfect game, improved dramatically by the EW expansion. Often people ask me a question about XCOM, which is “Have you tried the Long War mod?” Only as of last night can I say “Yes.”

I had very little interest in using any mods because 1. I was really enjoying the core game and 2. XCOM’s mods tend to be pretty high maintenance…but now that we’re late in EW’s dev cycle (i.e. patches will be rare) and this particular mod comes with an installer, the barriers to my trying it out had evaporated.

I don’t like to mix work with play. Seriously, when I get home, I just want to play. But, I’m about to break that rule too, as I’ve been reading up on how to set up customized default armor skins for my troopers, so they hit the ground looking snazzy, and I don’t need to manually adjust them after the first mission. LW gives us 24 operatives to start (as opposed to 14) so doing it manually is getting annoying.

Long War is amazing. There is a non-zero chance I’ll Youtube a bit of my yapping about it (you know, for the two of you that still know I exist) but you can skip the wait for me and watch the truly brilliant Cmdr. Beagle tear through Xenos like it’s his job. (Because, right now, it kind of is.)

Wait. You got married. How was that?

Epic, thanks for asking. :) I even Rick-rolled my own wedding. It went over well. Also, we went to Kauai for a week; it was incredible. Go.

Are you still playing Wildstar?

Yes, but it’s taken a sullen back seat to the glory that is XCOM: War Within. I got to run a bit of an instance last night with two of my friends, right up until the point that it bugged out and we couldn’t proceed anymore. Early MMOs…what you gonna do? My feelings haven’t changed but they’ve tempered; especially with this new life breathed into XCOM. I should say that they really enjoy it and are urging me to stick with it…and I understand that it all is supposed to open up post level-20…and I’m lv16 now. I’ll give it a while longer, maybe a few more instances before I make another call.

Also, I drifted away from Dark Souls 2 without completing it…but it was amazing. I recommend that game, if, you know, you’re like me and you live for Ironman mode in XCOM.

So, Wildstar. I’m three sessions in (maybe ten hours worth of gameplay all told) putting me just into Level 14 on my Spellslinger. I tend to slot more heals than attacks, I can’t really call her a “healer” just yet, since my “group content” thus far has been restricted to “That player needs help, I should shoot them with healy beams from my…hands?” It’s not explained (at all?) why a “Spellslinger” duel-wields pistols and Can Haz Magic (anymore than my character’s insistence on holstering her weapons to her buttcheeks instead of her hips) but I guess “Rule of Cool” is all I’ll get for now. (Well, of course with a side of sexism.) (And “sailor humor”. Really, there’s some humor in this game that is of the form ‘cheeky puns concealed in sexual innuendos’.) I am a “Scientist” meaning I see more Lore than other players (and I’m presented with more puzzles, I think, and a cool little robot friend I named “Drool Engine”) but so far that lore has been entirely centered on the planet Nexus and the Archetypal Ancient Species That Had Everything Figured Out Until They Died From It. Nothing on the various classes or other tech that came along with the Exiles for the ride.

My fully-qualified character right now is a Human Female Spellslinger Scientist with the Exiles…because while the Exile story (so far) takes itself only as seriously as it must and is as much Firefly as Spaghetti Western, the Dominion was that all buried under endless ostentatious mustache-twirling. It was tiresome (the mustache twirling) in a few minutes, but I stuck it out for a few hours during beta. They don’t have evil aims as much as they have Evil Overtones. (Don’t get me wrong, they’re jerks…but, really…the mustache twirling. Ug.)

The gameplay is fun and amusing, the music is really enjoyable, and the art design is really pleasing. There’s almost too much to do at times as I find myself with a sudden Timed Challenge (or two) while trying to do two to three quests simultaneously in an area where there are also resource nodes to tap…and sometimes mining a node will upset that node and it (or something attached to it) will stand up and either flee or try to kill you. (Really.) But, as problems go, “Too much to do” is a really fun one to have.

Everything I’ve read about the game suggests that I need to really wait until lv20 before I experience the game at its best, and I think I “got my house” at lv10 but I’ve seen no evidence of this yet (nor have I looked for it very hard) so all I have to go on right now is aesthetics and fun-factor, both of which are panning out alright. I’ll reveit my feelings on it post level 20.

EDIT. Nezz (Former 2%) corrected me: the house comes in at lv14, not 10. I am level 14. Now I just need to find my way to the capital some day.

There are a lot of people that do this whole scene better than I do. Campster (Errant Signal), Super Bunnyhop, Lazy Gamer, Mr. BTongue. (Notice how I’m talking about Youtubers.) I enjoy making Youtube videos, but not enough to balance out the astonishing amount of work they require. (Seriously, a single episode of Thade vs. XCOM would take six to eight hours to do…for a 20 to 30 minute mission. I’d rather just play.)

I dipped my toe into Twitch streaming (sans announcement) which was pleasantly simple but is very unrewarding when you know you’re playing to an audience n=0. “I could put a lot into this and generate some views, maybe,” but then I remember “I kind of want to try other things.”

One thing never really peters out of me though, and that’s blogging. Something many other people are better at than I am: better meaning not just net hits they get or the fact they’re paid to do it…but better content-wise. Higher quality, higher volume. I really enjoy reading well thought out and researched video game criticism. Much more than I do trying to come up with it myself.

As is evidenced by the half a year it’s been since I’ve posted here.

There was a Sims 3 binge in there somewhere. And a lot of Path of Exile. Don’t Starve. Occasional Left 4 Dead 2 forays which I still have a knack for, I’m happy to say. Much of my L4D2 static team is now playing Wildstar and there are a handful of Two Percenters (my old SWTOR guild) in there as well. I miss those people. WS looks like it might be fun for a bit, so with little to lose, in I go.

Straight up, I have been utterly consumed by a new game which I’ve hesitated to Youtube for two reasons:

it’s not really fun to watch;

it’s so fun to play that I’ve been doing it to the exclusion of everything else during fun time.

I’m daydreaming about Don’t Starve (and still have a pending episode to encode) and just picked up King’s Bounty on TB’s recommendation (and it’s on sale) as well as Saints Row IV (also on sale this past weekend) soooo I’ve got a lot of pending entertainment that I don’t expect to finish prior to the arrival of a certain game that I will no doubt be obsessed with. Seriously, every day I’m seeing previews and opinion pieces praising the changes made to XCOM. I am chomping at the bit to test how resistant EXALT operatives are to bullets.

That all said, Path of Exile has currently taken a hold of me. It’s the Diablo 2 successor that I wanted D3 to be, introducing some brilliant adjustments to the click-fest genre: namely the monumental customization and brilliant gearing.

The passive skill tree is over a thousand nodes and shared between the classes, and while each class has little nests of abilities that the class is angled at, you can in every single case detour around the close nests and bee line for whatever you want, building a character that’s unique to you. The entire thing is very overwhelming, but if you grow your character organically with careful forethought you can have a good time of it; and if you fail, building a new character is actually not as prohibitive as it is in previous games of this type. Their entire market is founded upon that, actually: they have these Leagues in which you create a new character that can’t share assets with your characters in the Standard league, but they Leagues have special events, mobs, drops that you can only get in there. You play the League and, after some amount of time (a number of months) that League merges with Standard and they make a new one with new content. It’s like Ladders from D2. Leveling itself is quick (at least for the first 30 levels) and fun, allowing you to prototype a new character in a few days. Skills themselves are all drops – socketable gems – that level up with you and can be linked with other gems for fun effects.

My current main is a Ranger (the archer class) that uses a 2H sword and pushes Attack Speed and physical damage, using Smoke Bombs and heavy armor to survive. (Here’s the build.) She is super fun to play because she fits my style and – more importantly – breaks the mold. I did something with the Ranger that she was not ostensibly designed for (giant sword melee combat) and it’s working very well. I’ve got her in Act 2 of Merciless mode and her hang ups right now are that only two of my three resists are maxed and being Frozen straight up murders me. (Hence my pushing for that node cluster on the far, far right of the tree.) Smoke Bombs are a gem, and my Faster Attacks + Double Strike + Mana Leech + Life Leech + Melee Splash (all gems linked together) = I kill stuff FAST. (I swing almost 5-times a second. It’s awesome.)

Now, I say “not ostensibly designed for” when it’s obvious to me that she was tested with builds not dissimilar to mine, but I feel like I broke the mold which is the mark of a good game: this game let me go my own way, use my own approach to the game. Brilliant.

It’s a great game, which I recommend. It’s Free-to-Play and the right kind, mind you: you buy only cosmetic (glowy swords) and quality-of-life (more stash tabs) and no power at all. Try it! It’s free.

“The most disappointing thing for me about “gamer culture” isn’t really that there are a group of vocal product-gobblers who think that an entire medium belongs to them. It’s that there are so few people who are willing to interrupt them in that perception.”

I mean, I’m a straight dude: I get it. It’s hard to do it. It’s hard to stand up to a crowd of self-righteous “gamers” and call one of them out for being a jerk, especially when you (and they) know they can probably just drown you out, bury you under a mountain of stinky wet carpets woven of their baseless claims and decibel level, supported by what seems an infinite supply of supporters. But it’s time to start.

Half of the gaming community is made of up women and it’s time to stop pretending otherwise. Games that have stellar mechanics, creative settings, and beautiful emergent gameplay can and do have shallow, sexist portrayals of women. Why does Lara Croft have to be hyper-sexualized and whimper as she climbs to Hero? Why can’t she be like almost every male protagonist ever who starts out a bad ass? I don’t know, but I do know that we need to start talking about it. Tomb Raider had some great mechanics and looked great, but it and games like it still present women in lame ways, using old and insulting tropes.

If we don’t talk about the representation and perception of women in and around games, it will never stop being disappointing…and I don’t want that. I don’t want anybody’s daughters to grow up in a world where their parents can’t in good conscience share video gaming with them. Right now, how could you?

“Here’s a scene where other players will viciously berate and chastise you should they learn that you’re not straight and male, or best-case demonstrate perfect insensitivity. (Though, to be fair, they don’t have to know anything about you to just randomly use derogatory language that’s aimed at females.)”

“On second thought, maybe you’d like to try books.”

Gah. If I have a daughter, I really want to share gaming with her because I love gaming right down to my core. There are games that have hit me in ways books only wish they could. The games need work though, and the community needs a massive reality check.

I’ve been burning time working, relaxing, and playing Path of Exile…which is fantastic if you have mega Diablo 2 nostalgia and Diablo 3 left you wanting for that. I considered doing a video for it, but other than a quick “Check this out” it’s not really worth the trouble I think. I’ve got another Don’t Starve episode on the bench that just needs me to pull the Encode trigger….but, you know, encoding means no Path of Exile so…. :) I’ll get there.

Pre-order for XCOM:EW is up. Make no mistake, I fully support TB’s view on pre-ordering games. It’s a sign of impatience and totally unnecessary; bad even, since you can’t guarantee the game will deliver on expectations. (E.G. Aliens: Colonial Marines.) That said, I Kickstarted (pre-ordered) Torment, and I pre-ordered XCOM:EU. I believe in the Interplay-in-Exile team. And I believe in Firaxis.